The following is a short animated film, around 9 minutes in length, about a pair of unlikely adventurers. It is very much in the heroic fantasy style of adventuring (think Conan) than the high fantasy style.

I have mentioned before how much I’d enjoy to explore a new world, where none had set foot before, and how it was unlikely to happen in my lifetime.

There is of course Mars One and its plans to sent one way colonisers to Mars by 2023, but I doubt it will happen, and even if it did, the fiance would never agree to it. if not for those two facts, I’d probably jump at it, even if in effect it is a suicide mission. It’d give me plenty of time to write, for starters.

The closest I think I will come is a Mars colonisation simulator I found yesterday, called Mars Colony Challenger – I haven’t tried it out yet and it is still in alpha, so there are still probably bugs to iron out.

It is also a simulator, not a game. As such, you are trying to establish your base and keep it running, to find water, grow food and the like. It can be played multiplayer, and you can even take the rover out for a spin to explore the surface of mars – just watch out for storms and don’t forget to keep it charged.

When I have a moment I will have to grab a copy of the demo and give it a whirl – sounds like the kind of thing that might interest me.

One of my all time favourite movies is Blade Runner, perhaps the quintessential movie of the cyberpunk style and theme. For those unfamiliar with cyberpunk – and who haven’t seen Blade Runner – it is a dystopian sci-fi genre, one of high-tech and low society. Governments are generally weak and/or corrupt, while power lies in the hands of megacorporations, ones with their own private armies, who have been known to go to war with each other. The street is a dirty, crowded place, where many cultures and ideas meet in a vast melting pot, and where people upgrade their bodies with cybernetic and genetic augmentations. It also is always raining.

The cyberpunk genre had its height in the 80s and 90s, with various books, games and movies, and though its popularity has waned, it has not completely gone away.

One example of that is the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 computer game, by Polish company CD Projekt Red, not due out until 2015 at the earliest, alas. It is based on the old classic pen and paper Cyberpunk 2020 RPG. A few details have been revealed over on its website, as well as the first trailer. I haven’t played any of their games, but they have a good reputation, and if they can pull off what they state they want to do, it should be a great game.

For those that bought The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, they were given access to a special to a special live online event which featured the first look at the second part, The Desolation of Smaug, due in December.

For those who didn’t get to see it, Peter Jackson has released a short 6 minute excerpt to whet our appetites.